http://www.defense-aerospace.com/cgi-bin/client/modele.pl?session=dae.70831.1060353153&modele=jdc_34

Singapore to decide on fighter plane purchase early next year
09/01/2004 at 10:01:05

Singapore expects to decide early next year on its choice of 20 new combat planes worth over one billion US dollars to replace its ageing fighter fleet, Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean said in remarks released here Friday.

“We expect a decision on this matter early next year,” Teo told reporters in France on Thursday as he wrapped up a visit there, according to excerpts of a press conference released by the government.

The island-state, which has one of Asia’s most modern air, land and naval forces, is shopping for 20 warplanes to replace its current fleet of A-4SU Skyhawk combat jets in a deal valued at over a billion dollars.

Last year, Singapore trimmed its list to three possible choices — the Typhoon by European consortium Eurofighter, France’s Rafale and Boeing’s F-15 Eagle.

“We will make our acquisition decisions based on what is the most cost-effective option for us to meet our operational requirement,” Teo said.

“We have shortlisted three aircraft for our New Fighter Replacement Programme and one of those aircraft is a French aircraft, the Rafale. We will be making our evaluations over the coming year and make a decision in due course.”

France has been aggressively pushing to sell the Rafale.

French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, during a visit to Singapore in May, offered a technological partnership with the city-state if the Rafale was chosen.

Singapore also plans to buy naval helicopters and Teo said a decision on its choice would be made within a similar time frame as the fighter jets.

Teo was in France to oversee the launch of Singapore’s first navy frigate with radar-evading stealth capabilities, RSS Formidable, which French company Direction des Constructions Navales built.

The tiny island of four million people considers itself vulnerable to regional instability and spends vast amounts on beefing up its defence and keeping its military and reservists fully trained.

Herr, sorry to bother some of you but unless a fantastic breaktrhought from LM, no “technical switch” can be use on military heavy gear.

CAn you imagine if someone can find the weakness?

Much too dangerous.

From the link
http://www.stormpages.com/jetfight/J-10_J-11_FC-1.htm

The overall performance of XXJ is thought to be superior to EF-2000 and Rafale (stealth & agility) but still inferior to F/A-22 (electronics & supercruise).

Better stealth than eurocanards ?
It would be a good news for china but wouldn’t be too exciting since the XXJ is supposed to be ready in 2015 when the european programs have been delayed several years each.

Agility ?
I’m not an expert and I can’t predict “the end of dogfights” but in the future with HMS and very agile short range missiles, who can know how importnt it will be ?

electronics and supercruise, yes, everything that is related to a 5th fighter 😀

Originally posted by Chicken65
Rafale ofcourse!!!:D

I support your choice 😀

Originally posted by aerospacetech
The radar in question (Nostradamus) is an OTH-B type radar. It is thought that such radars, operating at large wavelengths, would effectively counter stealth because both shaping and RAM become ineffective. Now, traditionally OTH-B radars are also HUUUGEEE, fixed, gobble power like no tomorrow, have no heightfinding capability and poor resolution. You’d know roughly where the target was, but all you could do with that would be vector a fighter to try and find it visually as the fighter’s radar would still be largely useless.

It looks like the French are using new processing techniques to effectively overcome these limitations.

IIRC the first nostradamus resolution was around 5km.

The goal is to reach 2km

Originally posted by Sevo
I am not sure if the M88-3 is ready, and the Americans offered the F404 and even the F414. Plus India plans on making the
…….
Al-31 but I geuss it was a gamble that failed (1998), but then payed off post lifting of sanctions.

I can’t see anything missing you that post.

Another point is that since India is very ambitious with their programm (LCA, Kaveri …) perhpas they choose a “cheaper but not state of the art” engine in case of some troubles with their jet engine.

Originally posted by SerbPVO
One…officially;)
(the one that was shown on TV, obviously NATO had to confirm that loss)

Really ? and the second stealth plane was really invisible so, the TV couldn’t show him ?

Originally posted by ELP
The maintenance on the Rafale is certainly on par with the SU-3x based on how Harry described the SU-3x maintenance setup.

The maintenance cost of the rafale is on par with those of the su30 ?

As long as I’ve got real proofs of that, I can’t see how it could be possible.

Originally posted by ELP

Rafale claims in their advertising stuff, some interesting ( I would say the wording is “unsafe” ) figures when describing engine life between inspections. Foggy as it doesn’t say what that process is but going 800 hours without at least a scope and visual inspection is asking for trouble.

the 800 hours is a long term goal IIRC.
the very first rafale M engines were quoted for 400 hours and 3 months after, they were complaint for 500 hours.
For now, I don’t know.